We prettied up the kitchen floor.
And the guest room wall.
We got back to
The bathroom.
We spent 10 months fighting & beating cancer in the best dog ever.
We hosted 7 exchange students, graduated 3 from high school, sent 4 to college, graduated one masters degree, and had a wedding at the house

Lost a dog and got a puppy. Traveled to Bermuda, the Bahamas, Dallas three times, & Florida & San Antonio!

We worked on the bathroom, and the laundry!

That sounds like a FULL life, well spent. Happy Valentine's Day!!

How's your new pup getting along. Beautiful. Fun to see the pictures. But you're not don yet, so no slacking!

The last plumbing bits are here so hopefully (after a little cleanup) I'll be taking reveal photos today!

Pssst!!! We are Done!!!!

Here it is! Three years, three weeks in the making!
Starting from Dirt Basement Bathroom:

The goal was to make a bathroom that no one would question had been here since the 30's/40's in our windowless basement. So simple, tried to avoid trends.

All DIY: total budget was $15K but that included this bathroom & laundry room, a full replumb of all supply lines & DWV for the whole house (from 1920s galvanized - in an 1884 farm house), a new water softener, concrete floor in the bathroom, a new main floor powder room from scratch in a closet, a kitchen flooring update, a pantry update - plus a few extras here and there.

Tub - salvaged from the Mr.G's 1950s Bathroom from Hell

Toilet: 1949 American Standard Compact from the ReStore - with new insides/gaskets

Sink: 1939 American Standard Shelfback from the ReStore - rechromed faucets, legs from Palmer

Medicine Cabinet - salvaged from the Mr.G's 1950s Bathroom from Hell

Over the MC Light - vintage from a local salvage shop

Makeup Mirror - Seattle Luxe

The Storage cubbie - built in the negative space under a bulkhead, between a few pipes

Floor tile - Daltile Keystone 1in Hex , white & black

Underfloor heat - ThermoSoft

Shower tile - American Olean from Lowes - the basic .22 white stuff

Grout - Spectraloc Pro Premium - Silver Shadow

Paint - Benjamin Moore Aura - Coral Gables

Accessories - tp holder & robe hook - Ginger Chelsea

- the important hidden extras - concrete, floor leveler, kerdi, noble cis floor decoupler.

Ahhhhh!!! This is so exciting. I love it. Orange is the best and it looks so good with the tile. Congratulations. You guys did a fabulous job.

More photos!

This is the solution for hiding the hot water heater and water softener - a sliding wall. It slides in front of the tub when we need to get into it.

More!

Shower & tub fixtures - Hansgrohe Rain S Showerhead & handshower

S Thermostatic Trim with Volume Control and Diverter (tub to shower)

Kohler HydroRail Shower Column and Diverter (showerhead to hand shower)

Metris S tub filler

More more!

Mirrored Pocket Door - local salvage (still waiting for the hardware to arrive)

And the last ones.

Light/Fan/Heater/Nightlight - NuTone

Double shower rod, so I could have a clear liner and shower curtain (Pottery Barn) open separately.

Still have a little yet to do on the laundry side - so I'm not done yet - but Progress Is Being Made!

What a wonderful bathroom!!! I love the sliding wall too! That was brilliant! I just shared the pics with DH, he likes it too. The full mirrored door is very pretty. Thank you so much for sharing your adventures over the years. You have such a great sense of humor it been a real honor to take this journey with you. Blessings to you and your loved ones.

That stupid hot water closet (HWH was existing in that location and we couldn't find a better place to move it - it was much discussed) is the reason the toilet and sink aren't centered in the room (which makes me twitch) - at first we thought - maybe a bi-fold door - but we were having a lot of trouble maximizing the opening so we'd have good access if we needed to work on plumbing (we'd probably still pull the toilet if we had to replace the HWH) or just to add salt to the softener, and balancing that with the required clearance for the swing of a bifold door - and I had to make a decision so we could do the plumbing and pour the concrete and that would set the position of the toilet flange (and of course I had to decide this all while looking at a patch of dirt and take things like plumbing line pitch into account)- We knew there wasn't room for swinging door or a pocket door - and I kept going back to photos of barn doors.....but I didn't want to draw attention to it - so we built a sliding wall - and trimmed the two opposing walls to match.

I could have made small tile rug just between the two fixtures (vs more of a border in that room), which probably would have drawn less attention to the off-centeredness of the whole space - probably should have - but poor MrHunzi just didn't approve of re-dos after the tile was set.

I love it! Your white tile with black trim is my favorite look for a vintage bathroom and I love that you used the vintage sink with Palmer legs and had the parts rechromed. It is perfect and achieves just what you set out to do. Congratulations to you and to Mr. Hunzi for all the work and planning and accomplishment. It has got to feel so good! I have loved reading your descriptions along the way and do plan on following for the upstairs bathroom redo, and finally, the kitchen. Thanks for the ride and for the great photo reveal. I think the coral and the flamingos are a beautiful splash of color and that the sliding wall is an ingenious solution to a real problem.

I really can't thank you three enough - enduring, nancyinmich and lotteryticket!!! You guys have stuck in there with me and helped with all the ideas I needed to bounce off someone! I suspect this adventure has gone on so long, and has so many posts, that no one else is following it! Kudos also to the guys at the JB forum - who held our hands through the sticky technical bits!

You are most welcome sweety :) Nancy and Lottery are great help for everyone on the Bathroom Forum.

I am still waiting for a picture of your now grown dog. My DD and her fiance have a German Shepard named Jasper. He is a large dog! Very nice and she has done a fairly good job of obedience training with him.

DH and I are off this early morning to Chicago to help DD select a wedding dress for August 2016.

If he'll cooperate, I'll try to get one this afternoon while the sun is out! He just had his one year here anniversary! I picked him up from the airport last Valentine's Day - sweet baby puppy! Now he's full on adolescent German Shepherd! ;-)

Tell him a GSD won the Herding Group tonight at Westminster, so sit up proud! This one could even walk nicely. I have seen a few on TV whose hips were so low I swear I saw them subluxing as they walked. (I am a loosey goose myself so really feel for a poor dog who is bred wrong and has joint issues because of it!) Maybe the fashion is turning and slopey-backed GSDs are going out of style.

Can't stand those slopey backed GSDs! My boy looks like a proper dog. He's napping now, but here's a photo of him being a typical teen.

Tv time!

Awwww. He's so cute!

What a big boy! Is he really watching TV? He seems like he is. He sure is a handsome guy!

He does watch tv once in a while!

So do you guys think I should make a new "reveal" post - or just let this thread ride? I'm not sure very many people read this thread, or maybe just not have anything to say about it!

I think a reveal post would be very nice. One that sums up the whole thing, with some progress pics and the finished product. It will bring new people onto the thread, and inspire.

Agree, a reveal post!

I've recently started reading this thread. Reveal post! We have a three-year-old GSD. Love the photos of your guy.

Hunzi! Is there more than one Hunzi? Are you a Fool? ;-)

I am a Foolish girl! ;-) worlds colliding! So who are you, Fool?

Smrty!

Since I fussed about it on this thread, I want to give MrHunzi his due credit. He fixed my wonky shelves in the laundry room storage cubbie!

He built adjustable cleats, so I can still adjust the shelves if needed. Yay!

A handyman is handy!

As RedGreen says, "if women don't find you handsome, they might as well find you handy!" Luckily for me, MrHunzi is handsome, handy and at hand.

Just because I like things neat and tidy - here's the link to the reveal post: http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/3704277/starting-from-dirt-literally-a-basement-bath-diy-adventure-reveal

After a few months, we are happy, happy, happy! I still want to pull the medicine cabinet out sometime and paint the inside, and the glass shelves for it are still AWOL - but I'm sure they'll turn up by the time I finish the adjacent basement office suite (aka the Mary Kay Babe Cave!) other than that - there's just a little work yet to be done on our laundry room - the countertops still aren't in - and then the sink needs final install - but it's close - this summer. - well .... maybe ! You know us! Plus the darling LilMiss who bought a house about 2 blocks away with her new DH needs Daddy to come over and finish a room in her basement! As if I didn't have enough house to work on! Oh and I'm betting we'll add a bathroom to her basement in a year or two! At least we know how now! Plus she has two classic 1950's blue bathrooms which need a bit of love. We'll work on training them up as keepers of their own shrines of perpetual renovation - but meanwhile, they need help!

Oh how Wonderful!!! I miss having something to rehab. I really look forward to LilMiss's upcoming needs in her new house!

Now I've got to look at your reveal post!

Hi- I just came across this very long, informative thread....I love the final product! Beautiful job! I'm getting ready to renovate an early 60s bathroom and I'm looking for chrome legs for my sink. Were your Palmer legs reasonable? Any suggestions for other sources? Thanks!

Thanks NJJan!

Palmer legs are priced as if made of solid gold. I scrounged restoration stores and purchased three pair of vintage legs before I waved the white flag and bought the Palmers. They were worth it, even if they nearly doubled the restoration price of the bathroom (ok, not quite, but close!)

Funny story - I think I blew the minds of my housekeeping crew yesterday when I asked them to wipe down the small strip of tile in the bathroom closet and then slid the "wall" open.

Thanks Hunzi..I had a feeling after looking at their website :-)

Well to give you an idea - the sink cost me $5, the fixture repair (gaskets, valve stems) & restoration (polishing) cost about $200 more, the legs cost about five times that.

wow...but they are beautiful!

I saw some activity on this thread and came back just to revel in the orange walls, the sliding panels, the cute floor, the medicine chest and the sink. ( this is lottery ticket but I think I'm logged in under my other account)

I love it so much, I find myself showering in the basement vs the 2nd floor (which still has the shower in the clawfoot tub) - once we do the 2nd floor bathroom (not for a while), I'm sure that will change, but I do love it.

Not really bathroom related, but yet another tale for those who love stories about MrG - we are in the process of finishing off the rest of the useable basement (all of it minus the utility) and MrG has reared his ugly head yet again - remember wayyyyy back at the beginning of this adventure when I talked about the wavy concrete floor - OMG. So the rest of the basement is going to be loads of fun. It's out of level over an inch in quick checks - problem being it's too high in those spots - compared to where we will meet at the doorway (now beautifully tiled) to the laundry room. No, I will not let Mr.Hunzi break out and replace the concrete - we all know how that turned out last time, the end result may have been lovely, but the 10yr wait and the 3yr process is just too much for a second round of that sort of fun. ;-) And the future flooring is lovely, not inexpensive heart pine - unless I have to find an alternative to accommodate the Ghost of MrG.

For lottery ticket and enduring and nancy who kept me company through the whole saga of bathroom and dirt before - come over and offer your wisdom at the home decorating forum - which is where I thought might fit best for the Studio Pink Babe Cave Adventure!

Babe cave! I like it. See you in home decorating!

I'll be over after exercise!

https://www.houzz.com/user/hunzi I have the same drink and want to rechrome all the metal. How did you get the drain out and the lever above the spout?

I know this answer is 3 yrs too late, but I'm pretty sure we just turned it upside down and unscrewed everything.